I totally oppose criminalising youngsters for ANY reason. Keep them out of the criminal justice system - they learn worse behaviours in that environment, and can get socially isolated. Just make those who want to buy alcohol get registered with gov to obtain a "Drinkpas" - more police is not the answer.

This is outrageous. Is the western world going backwards into the middle ages? Back to the prohibition era, back to being ruled by puritans? If you think the youth has an alcohol problem and an alcohol culture, I mean if for them having fun is equal to getting totally wasted on alcohol, this signifies a deeper social problem that will not go away with a prohibition. There is no way that prohibition will improve the situation. This has been historically proven again and again.

Yes, criminalise the young.. that sounds like a great solution!!

Definitely happy about the raising of the legal drinking age and it should be strictly enforced.the teenage brain is still developing and there are too many alcohol related incidences with kids, let them get a couple years older before they get into that stuff

it is not going to make much of a difference, the kids can go to their "cool" older brother or "open minded" Uncle or "with it" cousin who are old enough to buy them booze, it happens in the USA too.If they want to do something about teen drinking then they should make sure the teens apply for a drinkpas to show when they purchase booze.If they want to bust some one, then bust the people behind the counter or at the check out who do not CARD the teenies.(if this law is passed, and it will be passed I am sure of it)

It won't work. It hasn't in any other country, and it won't here. Anyone who thinks that teenagers will now say 'oh, never mind, I'll just wait two more years,' is so out of touch with the real world that they should consider a career with the other politicians.

Education not legislation: it works for sex (ultra-low teen pregnancy rate compared with other Western countries) so why not with alcohol and cigarettes? It won't stop it altogether, but giving (young) people knowledge is giving them a choice about their own health.

The real problem of course is the easy availability and cheap price of alcohol.Raising the price and limiting availability (for example removing it from supermarkets/gas stations and only selling it in liquor stores) would help a lot more then raising the legal drinking age and locking up/harassing youngsters.

I don't whether it's going to improve the situation here in NL or not but being a Scandinavian where the limit has always been 18 I've always thought this 16 is ridiculously low. I honestly feel having the limit on 16 yrs is backwardness!!

great, one more reason for them to smoke pot and go to "coffee houses"

@Sarah: And why shouldn't parents decide and ENFORCE what they want their children to do? The answer would be education (for children & parents) not prohibition and sticking heads in the sand pretending the problem is gone....

Alcohol is a hard drug. The less the better.

Let's not kid ourselves- lowering the legal drinking age will not be a barrier to young people drinking. They will do it anyways, but in more high-risk situations out of the eyes of the police and other adults. Binge drinking will also likely increase. Not in favour.

This is a good responsible move. It is NOT about criminalizing the youth. It is about staying up to date. When the drinking ages were set decades ago we did not have the research that showed how alcohol devastates young brains. Or do you think we should allow lead paint to still be sold??

i think its stupid the more they're forbidden the harder they'll try would be diff if it went from 18 to 16
just be more strict agewise

Yes!! More rules are necessary!! Raise the age to 25, be a first in leading the way to liberalism and freedom of choice!! Make some alcohol passes at 65 euros per teenager, why not milk them too?

(Or realize that there are more important issues than a few of the kids that have problems in learning to respect alcohol.) (We are not all perfect!)Yellow journalism at it's best/worst again,DUH!!

I think a) those that are now 15 to 17 should have the right grandfathered.

I think parents should be allowed to purchuse bier and wijn for offspring, and order in bar / resturants.

I also think that they should limit amount consumed to 2 biers, and grocery stores only sell 6 packs of bier, no more crates

@Max Harmreduction: do you live in the Netherlands? Or do you know about its justice system? Minors in possession will not be incarcerated or lose university entitlements, for instance. They are just likely to be given cautions and/or required to attend some course on their first or even second offense.

This is not about more "police", but about more "inspectors". Police are the ones who come when people are drunk and do stupid things, regardless of age. So "criminalising the young" is not a relevant remark.

However, I wonder if the measure would have much effect, since young people always seem to find ways to get stuff that are forbidden to them - look at the amount of young smokers in high schools.

Well done!!!

Ah, the traditional approach: treat the symptoms, not the cause. Not nearly as effective, but it makes the politicians look like they're doing something.

I'm really against this. I think there's very little credible evidence to suggest young people are significantly damaged by alcohol.

Young people have been getting drunk in Europe for decades, centuries even. There's no evidence that brains in Europe developed any differently than anywhere else.

There are some reasons to believe that countries with higher drinking ages don't function correctly. Take the US for example, with their hard drug problems, fuelling a civil war in Mexico.

The tobacco companies want a time in every young person's life where the only legal drug is tobacco. Having a lower age on tobacco also makes their products seem more normal and safe.

Smoking does far more damage than drinking!

I doubt this will make any difference to the problem, as it only addresses the symptoms, not the root causes.

The drinking age in the US of 21 has failed to provide any reduction in under-age drinking, in fact it probably increased it as the population < 21 is larger than the population < 18.